The Tales of DABL
by noahnoah75
Summary: Many students head to Beacon Academy to become hunters and huntresses. Some come to hone their skills or to help others. But what happens when a student who enrolls has a horrifying past behind them? What lengths would they go to do get revenge on the ones who took everything from him? And how will his team of misfits change what the future has in store for him?
1. 1 - Tales of Beginnings

**I will start of by telling all of you readers that this is my first story, so it may not be on par with some of the others you may have read. I am releasing the beginning of the story in hopes of positive feedback so I know if this is something that people would like to read. Because of some *ahem* technical difficulties while writing the first chapter, the trial chapter has been instead split into two separate chapters due to length. In other words, chapter 2 will be like an extension of chapter one. Well, let's begin shall we?**

The scorching sun burned the necks of the miners as they shuffled into the mine, lugging their pickaxes over their shoulders. The crowd was completely silent but for the clomping of their boots on the ground. Many of them pulled the collar of the blue, full-body suit up over their necks to try to keep the sun off of them. As the group of over 200 workers trudged the mine, they split into groups of ten and headed down various branch-offs. The miners turned on their suit's built-in shoulder lights as the tunnels grew darker. Every small sound, the scuttling of bugs and rodents and the dripping of water, was amplified in the sil-

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The laughter broke through the silence like a rock shattering glass. The nearby workers jumped, startled by the sudden noise. The laughter had come from a tall boy with dark brown hair. His mining suit, despite being used the past two days, was almost spotless. The boy almost had a regal feel about him. Next to him walked a shorter boy, blonde hair covering his head. His uniform was torn at the elbows and waist, and his boots were replaced with worn down sneakers. Instead of the lower half of the suit, he wore a pair of shorts that went down to just below his knees, but stayed baggy on him. He had a kind of unruly feel to him, almost the exact opposite of the boy he walked with.

The taller boy slowly calmed his laughter so that he could speak again. "There's no way he believed that!" he said. The boy's mouth was still open slightly with giddiness from hearing the other boy's comment moments before.

The smaller boy looked at him with a grin on his face. "He totally did, I'm telling you." the boy said. "When I told him that the miners had to fight off several Grimm attacks a day down here, he got this really worried look on his face, like this." The small boy imitated the face of somebody who was horrified to give an example. This just caused the taller boy to break out in laughter again.

The tall, dark brown-haired kid and the short, blonde haired kid were called David and Coal, respectively. These two were great friends. They had known each other for years and were both sixteen years old. Normally, those who went to work in the mine were at least twenty-four years old, but these two had special conditions.

David lived with an old couple who lived next door to Coal. His mother had died from a disease seven years ago due to the lack of medicine and medical supplies and knowledge in the small town. This had taken a toll on David's father. His father became an alcoholic and rarely came home. During the day, he worked in the mine until his shift ended upon which he would head to the local bar and stay there until past midnight. One tragic day, while David's father was working in the mine, there was a small earthquake. The tremor shook a support beam loose and a section of the tunnels collapsed. After days of digging, it was confirmed that there were no survivors from that section. Soon after, David went to live with Coal's neighbors. Since the old couple's retirement funds couldn't cover a third person in the house, David went to work in the mine to earn his keep.

Coal, on the other hand, didn't have such a tragic reason to be working in the mines. Coal lived with his parents and his six-year-old sister, Emma. His mother had to stay home to take care of Emma so his father usually was the one to go and earn money for the family. However, Coal's father suddenly became ill. With his father bedridden, Coal was forced to take over as the breadwinner of his family. Coal protested at first, mainly about how he wouldn't be able to do the amount of work the other, older miners did. Coal mainly didn't want to give up on task of planning out how to make the town widely known. He wanted nothing but to make it so the town could support its residents easily.

The town they lived in was named Terraculpin. The town had been built on the ability to sell the coal and ores that were gathered from the mine. But, as the world became fully powered by Dust, the need for the small town decreased to almost nothing. The mines in the town contained no Dust crystals at all. The output of coal from the town was nearly zero percent of what they dug up. The coal they found was used, mainly in the winter, to heat homes. The town rarely had visitors and wasn't even shown on some maps. The few people who still remembered about it called it the "Forgotten Town".

The two boys continued to chat as they walked through one of the many tunnels. When the group they were with came to a stop, the boys walked over to the cart one of the other miners had been pulling along behind him and picked up their pickaxes out of it. They walked over to one of the walls and each took a stance near the other, ready to lift up the pickaxe to swing at the wall of rock in front of them. They both took a deep breath and raised their pickaxes above their heads, bringing it down again with a loud clanging sound. They continued this for around an hour or so before something unusual happened.

They were slowing down with the pickaxes, about to take a break to begin eating lunch when the ground shook for a moment. One of the other miners lost their balance and fell onto his ass while everyone else stayed standing, flailing slightly to avoid a similar fate. Coal looked nervously at his friend. David had I slightly terrified look on his face.

"W-what was that?" David asked with a shaking voice.

_Shit. _Coal thought._ He must be scared to hell after what happened to his father._

Before anyone could answer David's question, the ground shook again, a little harder this time, throwing everyone to the ground. After it stopped, everyone in the group looked at each other nervously. It didn't take long before they heard a noise that they had hoped to never hear while in the mines.

ERR! ERR! ERR! ERR!

At the sound of the alarm, the miners got to their feet and began to run towards where they had come from, abandoning their picks and the cart of rocks they had gathered. Coal and David quickly made it farther ahead than the others, having been two of the highest ranking kids at Fitness Dome, a makeshift version of a gym class that is part of other schools, for their class.

It didn't take long for them to near the entrance to the mine, seeing as how David had somehow managed to memorize the entire layout of the tunnels. As they got to the final turn before the exit, they encountered something that they were utterly stunned by; coming around the corner was a mob of people, running as fast as they could deeper into the mine. David and Coal stopped dead in their tracks.

"Why are there people here that don't work in the mines?" David asked.

"I think a better question is: why are they running _into_ the mine?" Coal responded.

Coal and David began to try to push through the oncoming group as it got to them. Though it was tough, They slowly were able to push past people. Coal made it to the corner at the same time that he reached the end of the group. Coal began to take a step forward before his heart dropped for a moment. He turned and looked around him, unable to see David. He turned and looked at the mob of people who had begun to turn down one of the tunnels and caught a glimpse of David being pulled along by the old couple that he stayed with just before they disappeared around the turn. Coal sighed, knowing that he would never be able to get David out of that group with the couple holding onto him. He took a deep breath and turned around the corner.

What he saw made him stop once again. Coal dropped to one knee, and spat out his breakfast into a pile of mush.

**Stay tuned for the second chapter which will continue the trial section of this story, and please, give me feedback so I know how I did.**


	2. 2 - Tales of Death

**Here's chapter two which is the continuation of my trial for writing this story. I ran into a few problems that caused the release of this chapter to be delayed but everything is good now. I noticed that the last chapter had little dialog whatsoever. I tried to add more "dialog" in this chapter, if you can call it that. However, internal thoughts are still technically dialog...I think. Well, whether it is or not, here's chapter two.**

It took a few moments for Coal to recompose himself. The scene before him was terrifyingly gruesome and the reason for all of the town's citizens to be rushing into he mines was quite clear. Swarming around the entrance of the mine were about twenty-five various species of Grimm. The worst part of what he was seeing were the bodies laying scattered on the ground. Though many were dead, town apart by the ferocious beasts, there were several people that were still alive. Most lay on the ground in pain from wounds they received most likely from the Grimm. Coal also spotted a small group of four miners trapped in a corner by a pair of Beowulf, fending them off with one of their pickaxes.

_How did it get so bad? _Coal thought to himself._ Grimm rarely bother our town, and when they do, its only about one or two of them that happened to come too close._

He began to run through several courses of action he could take in his head. He figured the best two would be either to try and escape the cave in order to get to his home and meet up with his family, or to head deeper into the mines and catch up with the group David had been caught in. Coal let out a sigh.

_Sorry, David, I don't want to be trapped down here and I need to make sure my family is alright._

Coal surveyed the area, trying to form a plan to get out of the mine without being injured, or worse, killed. After studying the area carefully, he noticed that all of the Grimm were focused on the left side of the mine entrance where the injured citizens tried to crawl away down a tunnel, all except for the two Beowulf that were still trying to find a way to get at the miners in the corner without getting hit with the pickax. He estimated that there was about seven feet in between the Beowulf and the next closest Grimm, an Ursa that seemed larger than most others.

_I could try to get through there but if I get too close while trying to pass, there will be no way that I can get away from them._

A sudden shout caused Coal to look back at the group of miners. The one with the pickax had taken a careless swing and one Beowulf had swatted the pickax out of his hands while the other pounced on him, taking a huge bite from his neck. Luck seemed to at least be on his side, if not the miners'. Coal took advantage of the Beowulf being distracted and he sprinted towards the gap between them and the large Ursa. As Coal passed by, the Ursa turned and took a swing at him, missing by only a few inches from his head. Coal continued on, not looking back. While he ran away, he heard bloodcurdling screams, brought about as the pair of Beowulf claimed their prey.

Upon reaching the end of the path that led up to the mine's entrance, Coal saw that the situation was much worse than he had originally thought. Grimm could be spotted everywhere. Each street he could see had at least three Grimm on it.

_Man, the Grimm really seem to be overrunning the town. With this many, they must have spread out enough by now to have reached the housing dist-_

Coal froze, his unfinished thought sitting in his body like a dead weight.

_Oh crap..._

He took off sprinting towards the center of town, swearing under his breath the whole way. After a few minutes of running, occasionally having to dodge and outrun a Grimm or two, Coal made it to the area located at the center of the town: the housing district. Almost completely out of breath, he made his way down the road he was on until he came to the familiar street that he had grown up on.

At first, Coal was relieved to see that there was almost no Grimm in sight of the road. His state of calm only lasted until he saw that many of the buildings had scratch marks on them. His heart sank as he realized that the only reason there weren't many Grimm here, was because they had already passed through. His heart dropped even lower as he approached his house. The front door of his house was broken down, knocked over from the outside.

One thought ran through his mind: _I'm too late._

Coal hurried into his house, being careful as he entered each room so he wouldn't end up walking into a Grimm that may have stayed he reached his kitchen, he heard a low growl come from the second floor, followed by a shout that could only have come from his father. Coal quickly grabbed a pair of kitchen knives that had been left out next to a half made meal. Knives in his hands, he rushed up into the adjacent room, and hurried up the stairs.

As he reached the top of the stairs, Coal heard a crash come from his parent's room. He made his way into the room in time to see his father go flying to the far wall. A small cracking sound could be heard along with the thud as his father made contact with the wooden wall. Coal stood paralyzed in the doorway from what he had just witnessed. As he stood there, a large Ursa crossed the room to his father's limp body.

Enraged, Coal ran towards the Ursa that had begun to raise its paw, preparing to smash it down on its prey. Coal jumped at it from behind with a shout, making it turn its head, distracted by the sudden noise. Coal took the two kitchen knives, still tightly clutched in his hands, and plunged the blades deep into the Ursa's upper back. The large Grimm let out a roar as it stumbled backwards, trying to shake Coal from its back unsuccessfully.

_That's right, die in agony like your kind has made so many of the people in this town die._

Coal's face was full of rage as he clung onto the handles of the two knives, still stuck in the Ursa's back. Slowly, he managed to loosen one of the knives enough that he could pull it out. Gripping it in his hand, he raised it above his head. With as much force as he could put into his swing, he brought the blade of the knife down, plunging into the head of the Ursa, causing it to let out roar of pain.

Coal let go of the knives, both of which were stuck in the Ursa's body, and dropped to the floor. He moved out of the way as the Ursa stumbled backwards and toppled over, life quickly draining from its body. It was only a matter of seconds before the Grimm's body began to disintegrate. Relieved that the Grimm was completely dead, Coal turned to where his father lay motionless. He ran over to him and put his head to his father's chest and was met by the thing he feared: silence.

Coal sat in silence for a moment, replaying the events that had occurred in the past half-hour in his head. In so little time, he had witnessed more death than he ever thought possible, including his own father's.

_Things will get better. The world needs balance. With all that's happened today, something wonderful must happen._

Coal's mother had always talked about how events always were balanced out. She claimed that tragedies would always go hand-in-hand with miracles. Coal clung onto this concept as he sat there, hoping that things might turn around any moment.

_Maybe this is all just a nightmare? At any moment, I could wake up, ready for a nice peaceful-_

Coal was brought back to reality when he heard a clattering sound behind him. He whipped his head around to see that one of the knives had fallen to the floor, the body that it had been stuck in now almost completely gone. Coal stood and walked over to the knife. He picked it up, afterwords pulling the other knife from the head, loosened now that the head had begun to vanish as well. He headed out of the room, hoping that he could possibly find that his mother and sister had fared better.

_Mother will most likely have stayed with Emma to protect her. The only place I haven't checked is the rest of the bedrooms._

His hope did not last very long, however. The moment he entered the hallway that held the doors to his sister's room and his own, a dreadful sight foretold him of what must have become of his mother and sister. A single arm, detached from the body it belonged to, lay not a foot from his sister's room, the bracelet he had bought with his own money for his mother's birthday wrapped around its wrist.

Horrified by the sight, Coal stumbled down the stairs he had come up before, trying to not let his stomach empty itself for the second time that day. As he came out of his house, he made his way to the road and looked around. He tried to push the memories of what had occurred inside his house to the back of his mind, not wanting to remember, and instead tried to focus on the situation outside.

He stood there for a moment, listening for any sign of a Grimm nearby. He heard nothing.

_It looks like I'm safe for now, I can't hear a thing._ Coal's muscles tensed up. _I can't hear anything...but I should be able to at least hear signs of them in the distance._

Coal looked in the direction of the mine, wondering what might have happened to everyone who went there. Still gripping the knives he had taken from his house, Coal ran back towards the mine with what little energy he had left after fighting the Ursa.

As Coal approached the mine, he became even more worried; despite getting closer to where most of the town had fled, he hadn't spotted a single Grimm. He rounded the corner and the mine's entrance became visible. Nothing. There was nobody in sight other than the corpses of those who had never made it inside in the first place.

_I don't like this at all._ Coal gripped the knives even tighter, keeping the blades at the bottom side of his hands so that he could easily slash at anything that might try to sneak up on him. He slowly made his way into the mine, keeping an eye on the shadows to make sure no Grimm were hiding nearby.

Coal turned a corner and immediately tripped over something on the ground. After nearly impaling himself with the knife in his right hand in an attempt to stop his fall with his hands, he struggled to his feet and looked down at what had caused his fall. It took less than a second for Coal to comprehend what he was seeing.

A body. More specifically: the corpse of the old man that David stayed with. _Wait, I thought they continued past here. Why is his body so close to the entrance?_ Coal looked around and realized that the whole section of tunnel at the turn had become the equivalent of a mass-grave.

He began scanning the bodies for anyone he recognized. Coal quickly identified the bodies of the old woman who helped house David, not far from the old man's body, and the mine's manager, still holding a pickax in his hand, revealing that he at least went down fighting.

"-oal."

_What?_ Coal's head snapped to face the direction he had heard the noise come from.

"Coal."

Coal finally was able to clearly hear the weak voice and identified it as David's. "David? Where are you?"

He heard a jumbled noise that he assumed was an attempt to say 'here' and saw a hand rise up a bit away from where he was standing. Coal made his way past the corpses and finally made it to his friend's side.

"Great to," David let out a painful sounding cough, "see you're alright, Coal."

"Idiot," Coal replied, "worry about yourself, you sound terrible."

"Don't worry about it." David rolled over onto his side so he was looking directly at Coal. "Did you manage to leave the mine, or did you hide somewhere so the Grimm couldn't find you?"

"I got ou- Bloody Hell!" Coal had glanced at David's side that had become visible to him after he had gotten on his side. It was now clearly evident that _something_ had taken a huge chunk from David's side. "Why didn't you say something?!"

Coal took one of his knives and began cutting off parts of his sleeves. "Coal, it's not going to work. I've already checked, it's infected. Even if you stop the bleeding, I'll only live for at most two days, and that's with an _actual _hospital treating me.

"Don't say that, David! You're not going to die!" Tears had begun to well up in Coal's eyes. _I can't let you die too! You're the only one left!_ "I'll go get some medicine to treat your wound, you'll be find"

Coal got up to walk away but felt something tug on his arm. "Coal. It's too late." David had reached over and grabbed his wrist as he tried to leave.

Coal looked back at David and saw that his face had gotten much paler. David's hand let go of his wrist and fell to the ground. He gave up on trying to look for medicine and turned back to his friend.

"I need you to do something for me, Coal." David's voice was raspy and was now no louder than a whisper. "The town was attacked because everyone's hearts were filled with despair. We had been forgotten by the rest of the world and had become destined to disappear." David let out a deep cough and blood trickled out of his mouth. "What I want you to do, is to carry the name of this town with you. Make sure that this is no longer the Forgotten Town."

Coal nodded as he looked at his friend. He understood what he meant. The Grimm were attracted to the despair of the town's people. David wanted him to destroy that which caused the Grimm's attack.

Another cough sounded from David's throat, sounding even worse than before. More blood dribbled out of his mouth. Coal reached down and grasped his dying friend's hand. David's eyes closed and a moment later, Coal could no longer hear a sound coming from him.

After a few moments of silence, Coal slowly got to his feet. _Goodbye, David._ Coal glanced at his friend for the last time before turning to leave the mine.

Outside of the mine, Coal headed over to where all of the mining equipment was usually stored. Coal already had made a plan of what he would do next. He opened the door to the storage shed and dragged out several barrels of gasoline that had been made from the oil they found while mining and was used to power the lights inside of the mine.

Coal rolled two of the barrels over to the support beams at the entrance of the mine that held up the roof of the tunnels. _Lighting these supports should cause all of the tunnels to collapse. This way the Grimm can't get to any of the corpses in there._ Taking another barrel, he began making a trail of gasoline leading away from the mine in the direction of the housing districts.

As Coal made his way down the streets, he rolled one barrel of gasoline in front of him while he poured another behind him, continuing the trail from the mine. Every-so-often, he splashed a bit of gas onto a house. _Since every building is made of wood, this will be enough to ignite everything._ After about ten minutes, Coal ran out of gas in both of the barrels.

Coal looked at his hometown, now a reminder of the events that he had witnessed that day. He solemnly made his way to his house, wanting to be inside of it one last time. As he entered, he quickly made his way to the second floor.

He purposefully made sure that he didn't look down the hall in the direction of his and his sister's rooms, not wanting to see the gruesome scene again. Instead, he walked into his parent's room. Coal went over to his father's lifeless body. In grief, he momentarily hugged his dead father, wishing that this was all a dream and that he would wake up to his mother's kind smile.

Finally managing to release his father, Coal turned to where he had left the dead Ursa. All that remained were two claws, both of which were tipped with blood.

A sense of determination rushed through Coal's mind. _This is where my mission to avenge my town started._ Some part of Coal's anger made him pick up the two claws. He quickly etched a message into both of them, splitting the message between the two claws.

Coal grasped the claw that held the end of the message and placed its tip on the floor. He raised up one of his knives and brought its handle down onto the top of the claw, driving the tip into the floor. Coal took the other claw and shoved it into his pocket. He took his knives and slid them into his belt, freeing his hands for other uses.

Silently saying goodbye to the house, Coal made his way out of the front door and walked towards where he had finished pouring the gasoline. As he reached the end of the trail, he spotted something he had noticed earlier: a piece of wood from a house that unfortunately burned down during the attack. He picked up the burning piece and turned to the gasoline trail.

_This will protect the bodies from the Grimm. They took their lives, but they will take nothing else._ Coal took the burning wood and dropped it onto the gasoline. With the fire quickly spreading throughout the town, Coal turned and walked away.

**I hope you liked the first two chapters of _Tales of DABL_. Don't forget to leave a review so I know how I did. I will begin working on a third chapter so that its ready if I get good reviews on the first two chapters. I already have an outline of what will happen next in the story line so hopefully, if this story is liked enough for me to continue with it, future chapters will be posted quicker than these two. Thanks for reading my story!**


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